Yes, I'm well aware "Lisybabe" makes me sound like a teenage girl. But I was when I chose the handle and it kinda stuck.

13 April 2009

#amazonfail

So... the internet, especially Twitter, is all a buzz with the news that Amazon has removed the sales rank from all lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender titles. What this means is that gay books are now excluded from showing up in bestseller lists, and turn up down the bottom of search lists (if at all).

But what hardly anyone is talking about (yet) is that books to do with disability and sexuality have had their rank stripped too.

Books like Tom Shakespeare et al's sociology text book "The Sexual Politics of Disability". "The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability" has also been de-ranked.

The story is starting to crop up in news articles all over the world, and most articles are citing Twitter. There have also been petitions set up protesting against Amazon's effective censorship of LGBT titles. But none of these mention that us crips are getting censored too.

If you tweet, do mention something about Amazon de-ranking books on disability and sexuality also. And make sure you use the hashtag "#amazonfail"

ETA: This of course isn't the only recent disability-related Amazon fail: http://is.gd/qC8W

ETA3: Disabled people seem to be taking a double whammy in this whole thing. First our books get de-ranked. And then the mainstream press fails to acknowledge us when writing about this. It doesn't matter if it's a glitch, a new policy, or a hack - the press should be representing us.

16 comments:

Thanks for blogging this -- I've now posted your link onto my Facebook page. If those of us with facebook accounts can do the same thing, that can help spread the word. Disability advocates, of course, can also participate in the new facebook group called (of course) Amazonfail.

Amazon.com users are using the tagging feature to mark items with 'amazonfail' and vote on affected items so people know where to find them. I've just added the books you mentioned to the list. I encourage anyone with an existing amazon.com account to go and vote on the tags, so they move up the list and more people become aware of them.

I did notice the books you mentioned when I looked over the list this morning, looking for books that might appear to be "adult" but that are really STUPID to limit access to. Whilst spreading the word about this in general (since not just geeks need to hear abut this) I pointed out the number of books designed to help people that had been stripped of their rankings.

I believe that it was the GLBT books that were first noticed and whilst other groups have been affected, because they weren't the first or the most vocal, this has all still been labelled an GLBT thing. But your point does go to show that troll on livejournal taking credit really is a troll.

Incredible. I've been not-really-online for a while, so I've not heard about this. Shakespeare's 'Sexual Politics of Disability' is a really good bit of sociology, while the 'Ultimate Guide' was personally important to me when I became physically impaired. All a bit rubbish really. Have Amazon reinstated the books, at least?

Kateryna Fury at Textual Fury is trying to work on a more detailed list of disability books that have been affected, but competing obligations on her time have been slowing down her work. Other people who have a few minutes to spare are needed to help out by looking up a few disability titles you know of and sharing the results. You can post in the comments area at her blog to ensure she sees it for her list:

The sales rank for a book is usually provided (if it's there) near the bottom of the page. Also check how easy it is to search for the book. With de-ranked books, it appears you often have to specify that you're looking for a book before the Amazon search engine will even "see" it. And sometimes you have to try other convolutions in your search too.

Also twitter books you find at twitter.com use hashtags #amazonfail #stilldelisted #disability

EXAMPLE:

#amazonfail affects [book title] #stilldelisted #disability

As for me, I'm afraid I have my own competing time commitments -- I may end up unplugging myself from the internet altogether just to force myself to focus on homework, *sigh*

I found this through metafandom on Livejournal. I haven't been deeply invovled in (reading about) the Amazon issue, but regardless of what happens I wanted to thank you because I didn't know that Sexual Politics of Disability was even available to buy and now I'm definitely going to get me a copy. Somehow.